Two groups absent from IMC meeting

The Implementation Monitoring Committee (IMC) for the Burundi peace agreement began a week-long meeting in Arusha on Monday, in the absence of two signatory parties to the accord, the Hirondelle news agency reported. The pro-Tutsi PARENA and MSP-Inkinzo parties did not attend. Some delegates said the PARENA party of former president Jean-Baptiste Bagaza had not been invited, because it had not yet signed a document pledging commitment to implement the 28 August peace accord.
And the MSP-Inkinzo president,
Alphonse Rugambarara said he was “suspending the participation” of his party in IMC meetings until “the government, the mediation and the committee respect the provisions of the accord on political freedoms”.

Hirondelle recalled that Rugambarara is the spokesman for eight pro-Tutsi groups backing former interior minister Colonel Epitace Bayaganakandi as their candidate to lead the first 18 months of Burundi’s transition. He said the pro-Bayaganakandi parties were being “harassed and provoked” by the Buyoya government and their press conferences banned “without any legal reason”.